This paper investigates the self-narratives of academically high-achieving, first
generation college educated, and highly resilient Roma women. We place their meaning
making and social navigation processes at the centre of our inquiry, understanding
it as an important element of the resilience process of upward mobility (Ungar 2012).
Self-narratives describing their changing social class and the corresponding dilemmas
offers us the opportunity to understand their strategies, and how to accomplish a
resilient minority mobility trajectory, by mitigating the tension and the emotional
cost that unavoidably comes with the large social distance they travel between their
community of origin and the newly attained class (Naudet 2018).
The article draws on two research projects; the first conducted in Spain (2015-17)
among 35 Roma university graduates, and the second in Hungary, (2018-20), between
150 Roma and non-Roma university graduates. We have selected one ‘resilient minority
mobility trajectory’ as an ideal type from each database for the purposes of this
comparison. In this category, upwardly mobile Roma graduates achieve their aspired
self-development with the minimal ‘emotional cost’ possible. Our main argument is
that a ‘minority path of social ascension’, in itself, is not enough to mitigate the
high emotional costs of changing social class. It also requires negotiation, meaning
making or reframing work. In this thesis, we support Michael Ungar’s proposal that
resilience during upward mobility is a process in one’s ecological context and not
an individual asset, and that meaning making work is a crucial part of it. We expand
this thesis, however, by demonstrating how navigation among the available resources,
and the negotiation of what a ‘proper Roma woman’ and a ‘successful life’ means, in
the community of origin, plays a crucial part in accomplishing a resilient upward
mobility process.
